Experience and credentials

Resume

Experience, education, certifications, and technical capabilities for Taegan Williams.

Profile

Application Security Engineer with hands-on experience protecting on-premises and cloud systems through threat assessment, secure coding guidance, and practical risk reduction.

Works at the intersection of business security, automation, AI-assisted workflow improvement, and secure software delivery.

Brings earlier experience in industrial control security, research, and infrastructure-heavy environments as a strong technical foundation rather than the current primary focus.

Experience

Application Security Engineer

Corporate Tools · Remote

Present

  • Protects on-premises and cloud infrastructure by conducting threat assessments and partnering with developers and product teams to surface risk earlier.
  • Helps implement secure coding practices and operational security controls that fit real product and business workflows.
  • Implemented automated security validation, reduced high-risk access paths, and enabled automatable backups and repeatable security checks across more than 100,000 hosted websites.
  • Built network intrusion detection workflows to evaluate outbound traffic against malicious infrastructure and identify compromised workloads at scale.
  • Improved account protection workflows by locking client accounts when breached credentials are discovered online.
  • Contributed to fraud reduction and increased automation of security best practices.

Critical Infrastructure Cyber Protection & Defense Analyst

Idaho National Laboratory · Idaho Falls, Idaho

July 2021 - Present

  • Researches vulnerabilities in industrial control system equipment and protocols to improve defensive guidance and mitigations.
  • Contributes to open-source tooling and analysis workflows used by threat hunters and analysts protecting critical infrastructure.
  • Works across protocol analysis, reverse engineering, and research-driven defensive engineering.

Graduate Research Assistant

University of Idaho · Moscow, Idaho

August 2021 - December 2022

  • Helped design and administer on-site cybersecurity lab infrastructure for hands-on exercises and coursework.
  • Built networked environments with visibility, monitoring, and educational tooling to support cyber range scenarios.
  • Supported research at the intersection of training, automation, and resilient range design.

Project Manager

My Site Marketing · Remote

July 2020 - May 2022

  • Led front-end and back-end website changes, QA, SEO improvements, and client launches.
  • Coordinated technical execution across design, content, and delivery constraints.

Automation and Operations Technician Intern

Idaho Forest Group · Idaho

May 2019 - August 2019

  • Worked with industrial automation systems and HMI development in Ignition.
  • Gained practical exposure to operational technology environments and plant automation workflows.

Education

Idaho State University

Master of Business Administration · Idaho

2023 - Present

  • In progress, with emphasis on data-driven decision making, strategic marketing, and business analytics.

University of Idaho

Master of Science in Cybersecurity · Idaho

2021 - 2023

  • Includes Critical Infrastructure and Resilience graduate study.
  • Focused on ICS and SCADA security, automation, and security orchestration.

University of Idaho

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science · Idaho

2017 - 2021

  • Minor in Mathematics
  • Minor in Business
  • Certificates in Entrepreneurship and Cybersecurity

SANS Institute of Technology

Undergraduate Certificate in Applied Cyber Security · Online

2019 - 2020

  • Completed alongside GIAC-focused applied security training.

Certifications

  • GCIA
  • GCIH
  • GCFA
  • GSEC

Capabilities and tools

Application Security

  • Threat assessment
  • Secure coding practices
  • Account protection workflows
  • Risk reduction across product teams

Software Engineering

  • Python
  • C and C++
  • JavaScript
  • Security-focused tooling

Automation and AI

  • Business process automation
  • AI-assisted workflow design
  • Security automation
  • Repeatable operational controls

Background and Platforms

  • Industrial control security
  • Cloud and on-prem environments
  • Secure software delivery
  • Research and technical writing